(2) Elastic Load Balancer is a control loop responsive to workloads, that kind of thing is a commodity
(3) Under-provisioning is rampant in most industries; see https://erikbern.com/2018/03/27/waiting-time-load-factor-and... and https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0...
(4) Anomaly detection is not inherently a problem of distributed systems like the others, but someone facing the problems they've been burned with might think they need it. Intellectually it's tough. The first algorithm I saw that felt halfway smart was https://scikit-learn.org/1.5/modules/outlier_detection.html#... which is sometimes a miracle and I had good luck using it on text with the CNN-based embeddings we had in 2018 but none at all w/ SBERT.
Systems Thinking. It helps you understand how components interact to form a system, and how to change it. Books:
- The Goal: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0...
- Thinking in Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...
Pertinent for 2023, learn about costs. If you're an engineer, understand how much the services you're responsible for are costing. How can you reduce that cost? Can you optimize costs enough to save your monthly salary?
During the pandemic one of the only car companies that didn’t have major disruption was Toyota and they were the pioneers of this model of operating but they also understood the need to keep reserves of critical components.
In the case of Apple, they do have a backup plan - the lower end models were already being manufactured outside China and they could scale that up while they scramble to fix the Pro lines.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0...
In a non-startup company there is generally one bottleneck that holds the organization back and has to be controlled
https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0...
In a startup company or if you are trying to develop a "revolutionary" product there are usual several bottlenecks that need to be attacked. For instance going to the moon you have to solve problems from a list such as
* propulsion * navigation * life support https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706...
When you use goals to "destroy the competition" or "change the world", goals are a powerful technique. If you are setting goals because somebody told you to set goals or somebody else sets goals you are going to drive yourself to distraction.
The interviewer asked each of them to write down the one thing that contributed most to their success. Both independently wrote "focus".
https://www.inc.com/marc-emmer/bill-gates-warren-buffett-rev...
I remember reading the book The Goal in business school. What impressed me the most, was that the most efficient path to achieving a goal, is often non-intuitive, and sometimes even involves making destructive choices - choices that outside observers would find absurd and distasteful.
https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0...
It's not only about choosing a singular goal, it's also about meticulously calculating your path there.
Don't follow the herd. The pack is FULL of jack-of-all-trades that have a smattering of random skills they picked up. Make literally every life choice with directionality and planning.
[1] Crossing the chasm (Marketing related)
[2] Peopleware (HR related)
[3] How to win friends and influence people (HR related)
[4] The Goal (Business related)
[5] Critical chain (Project management related)
[6] Who moved my cheese (Change management related)
and any of the lean / agile businessy books for ex.
[7] The lean startup
These might not be viewed as traditional MBA material, but my course featured some of these along with more traditional academic books on subjects like financial management, people management, operations etc. I can provide these textbooks to you as well if you like.
*Amazon links just for convenience, no affiliation.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstre...
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-3...
[3] http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...
[4] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0884271951?keywords=eli%20g...
[5] http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Chain-Eliyahu-M-Goldratt/dp/0...
[6] http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0399144...
[7] http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-...
- Embracing the idea of a manual valuable process is a great one - as engineers we often want to start by automating and/or building, and dive right in - only to realize later we either didn't understand the product, or our stakeholder didn't and now wants changes once they've seen what it does. (Deeper dives here: "Escaping the Build Trap"[1], "The Minimalist Entrepreneur"[2]
- Understanding negotiation is extremely helpful as you are often operating under constraints, and need to get those across to your stakeholders such that you can both move forward together. Negotiation is basically about aligning two stakeholders with different goals and arriving at an arrangement they can both live with. (Highly recommend "Negotiate without Fear"[3])
- Another excellent concept surrounds the theory of constraints and getting good at recognizing bottlenecks, and subordinating all other processes to them. Essentially, if work is piling up somewhere, look at where it is coming from, and attempt to re-route those efforts to something productive (the bottleneck moves the same speed regardless of how much work is piled up in front of it). The classic book on this matter is "The Goal"[4] but a fun retelling more oriented around an IT department is "The Phoenix Project"[5].
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Build-Trap-Effective-Managem... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Minimalist-Entrepreneur-Great-Founder... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Negotiate-without-Fear-Strategies-Max... [4] https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine...